Post '94 - Racism

Just got home from a speech contest at St John's, a predominantly white, private school and it left me thinking about race.

I attended the school and, in retrospect, I believe that my experiences were similar to what I experienced tonight although I couldn't recognise it back then.

There is still a racism.

It is not blatant and a part of me thinks (and hopes) that it is not intentional. It got me thinking about my own behaviours around race too.

St John's is a liberal school with teachers and students all moving forward with the idea of equality for all, as they should. The school's policies and rhetoric are transformational - in that the white elite is slowly being replaced by a black elite - but that's a separate issue. There are more and more non-white students in the school every year, more and more non-white parents on various boards and committees and from the outside you'd say that the pace may be slow but things are on track.

However, I believe that there's a deeply disturbing racism and it has affected me directly. It might be affecting younger generations who are unaware of it and I'm hoping that this could start a conversation to better understand the issue and start a process of change. My younger brother being part of this younger generation was the reason I was at the speech contest and also the reason I am motivated to re-examine my experiences at the school.

My understanding/perception/experience:

The racism at St John's stems not from the conscious thinking that the non-white student is of less value due to his skin colour. Instead teachers interact in a subtly different way with students because the different skin colour represents that the student comes from (and belongs to) a different world, a world that the teacher does not understand, but more potently, a world that is not relevant to him.

The comments from the adjudicator on the speeches of the white students were to do with their progress as speakers over time. Their development as people and leaders mattered to the adjudicator because they are people in, and future leaders of, his world. The students who don't fit into his world are entitled to his feedback, but only in an immediate sense, in the short-term, after which they will be irrelevant to him and likely to never feature again.

A part of me understands this separateness of worlds. The white kids are the kids of the adjudicator's classmates, his in-laws, work colleagues, they may end up marrying his daughter. This or some or other connection that makes them relate-able, makes them relevant. Whereas the non-whites are irrelevant beyond the speech contest. Their long-term futures aren't going to impact his life.

The reality is that, post-Apartheid, worlds are colliding and becoming ever more integrated and the perception that there is still a separateness (mis-)guides thinking. The psychological legacy of Apartheid and of colonialism is that we allow ourselves to think that our world can be separate from the world of someone else.

When I was at St John's I was asked about my plans after school by only one teacher, and that was done as a matter of curiousity rather than concern. I now despise the very notion that their are people in our lives who feel no need to invest in ours. How different would my world have been if  my teachers believed that my future would impact their future? How can the white man learn Ubuntu? And, perhaps more importantly, how can we keep ourselves in check to make sure that we are not falling victim to the same trap?

I suspect that a similar thing is happening between Indian Muslim teachers and black Muslim students in Muslim schools. I think that I am guilty of not attempting to relate to the poorer members of society I encounter, to the foreigners whose futures are not directly tied to my own and even to my white co-workers. Can I teach myself Ubuntu?

Things that can be drawn from this: 

• You can send your kids to fancy provate schools, they will receive an excellent intellectual education but not build a network of people who are concerned about their long-term well-being.

• Evaluate your own life. Are there people that you encounter and treat differently because they are not a part of your perceived world?